One of the WHO's 3 critical priority pathogens, Acinetobacter baumannii, for which new antibiotics are urgently needed is one step closer to being tackled, as researchers have made a breakthrough in understanding the enzymes that assemble the antibiotic enacyloxin.
Read moreThe memory of the immune system is able to distinguish a foreign protein with which the organism has already come into contact from another and to react with a corresponding antibody. Researchers have now discovered in flour beetles that the immune system's ability to specifically fend off pathogens can adapt in the course of evolution.
Read moreScientists have discovered that a natural antioxidant commonly found in green tea can help eliminate antibiotic resistant bacteria.
Read moreA protective protein that detects newly-made incomplete protein chains in higher cells is found to have a relative in bacteria. There, the protein also plays a central role in quality control which ensures that defective proteins are degraded. The functional mechanism of these Rqc2 proteins must therefore have already existed several billion years ago in the so-called last universal common ancestor. Scientists have experimentally investigated the bacterial Rqc2 relative's function.
Read moreThe first extensively drug-resistant (XDR) strains of Salmonella Typhimurium, a pathogen which is responsible for millions of bloodstream infections per year in sub-Saharan Africa, have been identified in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Drug-resistance has increased in successive groups of S. Typhimurium over time. These new strains are resistant to all but one of the commonly available drugs in the DRC, with one sample showing reduced susceptibility to this final antibiotic.
Read moreA team has completed the first study of the effects of a simultaneous infection with blood flukes (schistosomes) and the bacterium Helicobacter pylori — a fairly common occurrence in some parts of the world. They identified a complex interaction which resulted — among other effects — in a weakening of the adverse impact of the pathogens acting individually.
Read moreIn a series of lab tests, a relatively common soil bacterium has demonstrated its ability to break down the difficult-to-remove class of pollutants called PFAS, researchers said.
Read moreNew study suggests the gut microbiome has a role in mechanisms related to muscle strength in older adults. Researchers found differences in bacterial profiles of older adults with high and low physical function, bacterial and strength differences in mice colonized with fecal samples from the adults.
Read moreIn just five generations, an altered microbiome can lead to genome-wide evolution in fruit flies, according to new research.
Read moreBiomedical engineers have developed a new platform to create biological drugs using specially engineered bacteria that burst and release useful proteins when they sense that their capsule is becoming too crowded.
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